Kazuo's Pickled Fingers (pt1)

{This is the first part of a story I wrote as a 'do the style of Murakami' exercise.  Eagle-eyed readers might recognise the mcguffin in this story from an oblique reference in The Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage.

I'm putting it up in parts so that a) i can fix the start if i need to make it better at retaining attention, b) im advised its polite on YWS to keep things below 2k words if possible, and c) because I'm still editing it from the prior draft so will post more or less as I go.  If you'd like to wait for the whole thing to be done fair enough, but thoughts on this part are eagerly accepted.}

{Edit 1:  thanks for the comments folks. I've given it a polish, trimmed some of the fat, and am thinking of somewhere else to put other parts (the struckthrough passages).  I'll try have part two up quite soon.}

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Kazuo was a little out of breath as he battled through the crowded streets of Tokyo, occasionally being buffeted against his fellow pedestrians. Normally he would make some apology, but today he didn’t have the time to slow down, let alone stop. His delayed plane had put the day off to a late start, and caused Kazuo's hurry  He had fingers to collect.

This business had absorbed Kazuo so entirely that he did not see a tall gentleman stepping backwards from a vendor stall and so walked right into him, spilling the man’s coffee, pastry, and newspaper onto the pavement.  Kazuo's manners overcame his sense of urgency and he began to bow, apologise and offer to replace the coffee, the paper, the pastry, the suit, or anything else that might have been injured in the clash. The gentleman took quite a while to gather himself. He turned, looking bemused as if he could not quite connect the lost light-lunch to the forceful impact from behind. As he turned, Kazuo saw a truly dreadful moustache; the hair so thinly spread that it wasn’t worth the effort, but with so much grooming that it was clearly something this man had committed to. He wore horrible, wire-framed glasses, and is hair was disheveled in a manner that was neither natural nor fashionable (the only acceptable forms of dishevelment, as far as Kazuo understood the matter). All this distracted from what was a rather handsome face, and impressive build, leaving the sense of someone who was not unattractive, but deliberately falling short of acceptable.

“Kazuo!” the gentleman declared, beaming.  

Kazuo recognised him.  His manner was very familiar and he leant forwards a little bit as he spoke to you, which made him look slightly off balance and seemed to come from his minority opinion on how far one's personal space extends.  Aiko was taller and broader now, and whilst at high school Kazuo had charitably assumed that the awful moustache had belonged to an Aiko who didn’t recognise the time to start shaving, it was clearly a deliberate choice now. Aiko was the sort of person who acted as if he is friends with everyone who is not openly hostile to him. Kazuo held nothing against him, but this.

“How have you been?” Aiko bowed, then grabbed Kazuo’s hand to shake vigorously. “It’s been years. What are you doing these days?”

Kazuo garbled some polite ‘hellos’, ‘I’ve been well’s’ and ‘how are you’s’. It seemed Aiko did not detect any efforts to brush him off. He urgently returned to the coffee vendor and bought two cups. Kazuo had wanted to apologise and make his escape, but to do so would remind Aiko that people didn’t like him and Kazuo didn’t have the heart to inflict that. He’d seen Aiko, and others like him, gather themselves and put on the show of indifference to these small rejections. It was a heartbreaking thing to witness, and had trapped Kazuo in Aiko's orbit.

“I heard that you and Kana got married. Congratulations.” Aiko grinned inanely. “I bet half of the boys in our year were furious.”

It was true, Kazuo had indeed married Kana. She had joined the school in their final year, before she, Kazuo and a few others from their year-group were accepted to a prestigious private university in Tokyo. By the time they graduated Kazuo and Kana had started dating. It was Kazuo’s first and so far only, relationship.  The crux of their relationship had always been, for Kazuo, his fascination with how she thought.  Kana was considerably smarter than anyone he'd ever met and it was fascinating to watch her work through her thoughts.  She would never lecture at anyone, the way people who know they’re clever do. She was interested in everything and would talk comfortably with anyone on their speciality.  

“It must have been quite a while now. How is she? Any kids yet?” Aiko asked.

“Almost nine years since we got married, but no, no children. We’re not married anymore.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” Aiko said, shrugging rather nonchalantly. “But then, she must be difficult to keep - she was smart, and she could take her pick of men”.

Kazuo felt the urge to punch Aiko rise, like a wave inside him, with astonishing speed. He felt it grow in strength and power before it crested and came crashing through his mind - obliterating everything but the simple thought “I cannot punch Aiko in pubic.” Kazuo’s spine, jaw and, and neck all tightened as he resisted the urge.  He reminded himself a few times that it wasn’t Aiko’s fault that he was strange and annoying. He didn’t know when he was being rude. Still, Kazuo felt he’d been polite enough. He reached out his hand to shake Aiko’s, and thanked him for the coffee. Before he could utter the words ‘I must be getting on,,’ Aiko cut him off by loudly declaring his astonishment.

“Wow, what happened to the fingers?”

“Oh,” Kazuo said, a little sheepishly, “Uh - I had them amputated a while ago. A little before Kana and I got married.”

“Wow, well done. I always wondered why your parents didn’t have it done when you were small. It’s totally normal now, you could never tell.”

“I had a blood disorder. They couldn’t do the operation on me until I was an adult.”

Kazuo had been born with six fingers on each hand. When he was little he’d used it to scare the girl who lived two doors down. It was only play, but as he got older he found that people behaved strangely towards him after they noticed.   He never felt any ill-disposition towards them.   That they illicit reaction in people at least made them interesting and he could always multiply by twelve faster than everyone he knew, (not that he was using his fingers - he just felt the facts were likely related). Among his childhood peers his fingers set him apart. He always played a wizard or kitsune or powerful alien in their games. He was often the villain, but always respected as much as feared.  When the rare turn for him to be the hero came around, he was revered for his powers.

Another wave rose through Kazuo, slower this time, not violent like the last one.  He wasn't quite sure what it was doing, but it became apparent to him that he had been altogether too polite for today. His business was urgent, and Aiko had imposed on his time more than enough. Kazuo thanked Aiko again for the coffee, made a curt farewell and walked on. The cup was warm in his hands and the coffee was dreadful so he binned it as soon as he suspected he was out of Aiko’s sight.

It was not a cool day, and in his suit he had started to sweat with the strain of walking too fast. When the opportunity presented itself he slid into a Starbucks to but a bottle of chilled mineral water. His habit was to hold something chilled against his neck, cooling the blood in the jugular. For this, the shape of the container was more important than its contents. A can of pepsi would do, but some bottles were well designed for maximum contact-area. Having handed over two hundred yen, he pressed the bottle against his throat and sighed deeply a few times. The moment his lungs took the fist gulp of cooled air was always blissful. He started to tune out the noise of the queue, the chatter of the shop, and the traffic outside. As he did, his mind drifted and it all became white noise, soon overcome by a quiet, understated adagio, raising in the back of his mind, half familiar. 

He was jolted out of his relief by a call... “Kazuo!”